Looking for an AEB-L recipe

K

KDX

Well-Known Member
I'm going to be grinding a few knives in AEB-L this week and was wondering if anyone had a good recipe for this steel with about 61-62Rc in mind. I will be using dry ice and denatured alcohol for the sub zero quench. I do not have access to liquid nitrogen. Thanks in advance.
 
Here's my procedure:
Preheat oven to 1950F
Insert blade, wrapped in foil
Allow oven to come back to temp
Soak 15 minutes
Plate Quench to just cool enough to gingerly handle with bare hands
Allow to cool to shop temp ~60F
Dunk in dry ice/denatured alcohol bath for 20 minutes
Bring back to room temp
Temper at 300 F for ~1:15
Repeat cold / hot two more times for a total of 3 cool/temper cycles

For me, that yielded 64Rc. A follow-up temper at 325 brought the hardness down to 62.

Good luck.

-Kurt
 
30 minutes in dry ice solution should be plenty, depends on size of blade. From the Alpha info, no soak is required at -95, just hold at -95 for the metal to reach -95 thru 'n thru metal. For a thin paring or fillet blade, 10 minutes might do it, but for a great big 1/4" thick blade a foot long, might take 30 minutes plus some.

Ken H
 
KDX said:
Thanks. I'll do the 1995F with 350F tempers. Should get around 62Rc. How long at sub zero? Would a half hour be adequate?
Click to expand...

that's what I do. :happy:

I do 325f temper first, check the hardness, and adjust. I've left the blades in for 1h in subzero, but it's probably not needed.
 
Thanks for the info gentlemen. I'll be using 1/8" stock so I think I'll go 1/2 hour in the dry ice just to make sure.
 
Kurt is dead on with his recipe. I use the same recipe with the same results. Had a 63 HRC blade get caught by the buffer and thrown across the shop with no ill effects, which is what made me love the toughness of AEB-L.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Just did my first sub zero quench and they are in the oven. I'll do two - two hour tempers. Thanks for the help.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top